How 'Julia Gillard’s Misogyny Speech: The Musical' was created

"I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man, I
will not. And the government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by
this man. Not now, not ever.” - Julia Gillard, October 2012.

It was one of those moments
that made you feel deeply, wonderfully proud to be Australian.

The then Leader of the Opposition Tony
Abbott had been needling Prime Minister Julia Gillard for months – years, even
– in his ‘everyman’ attempt to drag politics down to the gutter and keep it
whimpering there. Nothing was off-limits for him, it seemed: particularly her
sex. A woman! In politics! Who would have dreamed of such an occurrence?
Certainly not Abbott and his cronies, still firmly rooted in the
testosterone-laden locker room of Australian politics of the ‘60s and White
Australia. Women should look good, and shut up, that’s the impression male
throwbacks like Tony Abbott give. (He might change his policies at the drop of
an opinion poll but that’s one thing he’s fairly solid on.) He’d also do stuff, like
campaign in front of posters bearing the slogan “Ditch the witch”.

Something had irked Abbott, or
– more likely – he saw an opportunity to score another cheap political point,
something to do with the Speaker’s demeanour. It doesn’t really matter what now
– but Abbott decided that the House needed a lecture on sexism.

"The
screeching of the most senior members of the Gillard government and the Abbott
opposition yesterday was the sound of Australia’s Parliament scraping the
bottom of its barrel …"

It
was left to the commentators abroad to offer support.

In the UK, an expatriate Australian
columnist wrote in The Guardian, “It's
good to see Julia Gillard tackle sexism head-on” and referred to the speech as a "masterful,
righteous take-down”. Similar opinions were expressed in North America. A
YouTube video of the speech attracted a million hits in a week. Clearly,
Gillard had touched a nerve somewhere, whether the commentators back at home –
entrenched as they were in the male locker room mentality of Australian
politics – wanted to admit it or not.

Sound
Lecturer in Composition at the University of Queensland, Brisbane-based Robert
A. B. Davidson was one of those moved by the speech.

“I’ve
been interested in composing music based around speech ever since I was about
6-years-old,” he says “partly because it helps reveal stuff that isn’t so
noticeable in the words themselves. Speech intonation can reveal hidden
meanings and emotions that can’t be conjured by words. Also, it’s fun. In this
particular case, I felt Julia Gillard was simply being political but being
quite personal as well – and I like public figures being personal. So I thought
I’d try to draw a few of those hidden meanings out.”

In
conjunction with the young Australian Voices choir, Davidson created a
video/sound piece ‘Not Now, Not Ever!’ based around Gillard’s misogyny speech.
The finished work is quite stunning. The composer uses repetition and choral
harmonics for emphasis, picking on certain words, ignoring others – sometimes
the words are near shouted the way they’re accentuated, sometimes a solitary
female lead picks up a wordless lead for a few seconds. You certainly get the
impression that Davidson believes in the authenticity of this particular
speech, the importance of it. The overall effect is one of... well, complex emotions
and perhaps a slight wonder that such a speech could have happened within the
stuffy confines of the Australian Parliament. The music itself creates a
secondary political narrative separate to the surface narrative taking place in
the public eye.

“I
enjoy using quite recognisable speeches,” Davidson explains. “There is a
certain fun in taking something familiar and giving it a new perspective,
realising there’s this music going on in the background at the same time. I did
a piece around a Kevin Rudd policy speech [the historic 2008 apology to
aboriginal Australians] which was more critical, and I’ve also recorded a whole
album with Jonathan Diamond and Jamie Clarke, Airwaves, which involved going through older radio
broadcasts – Gandhi, Churchill, Clinton... I’m trying to get behind the words and
get the distractions of the words out the way.”

“There’s
a wonderful passage in Oliver Sacks’The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, where the author talks about being in a whole room of
people who’ve had strokes and brain lesions. They’re called aphasics, they have
not got the ability to understand words but have the ability to understand intonation
and musical language – he describes a whole room of people back in the ‘80s
watching President Reagan give a speech on the TV, and they’re all laughing. They
say it’s because you can’t lie to an aphasic because they always hear what’s
underneath. I’m trying to give everyone the perspective of an aphasic.”

Following Julia
Gillard’s speech, the Macquarie Dictionary changed its definition of misogyny from
“hatred of women” to “an entrenched prejudice of women”.

2 comments so far..

Look, I'm going to quite unpopular here and state that I stopped when you wrote "wonderfully proud to be an Australian". What I saw was a desperate politician losing grip on the populous vote for poor management and policy choice so like any polly worth their salts do the next best thing. Bag your opponent. Do I think sexism exists in Australia, yes, do I condone it, no. The same could be said about racism but lets not go there (stay on topic). Its great someone is being creative enough to put this to music, but I'd say half the population will be hi fiving each other and the rest (me included) will shrug and say "so what, we've inadvertently paid for this..... wow, great ROI"

Dannyboy mate, I just make the observation that you have proved the point TAV are making. Where is your discussion of the disgusting manner that a certain newspaper proprietor went after the duly elected PM and at a time when the Australian economy was doing better than any other in the OECD? What should have been a cause for celebration was turned into one long whingefest and there was only one reason they could get away with it. And I think we all know what that was. Murdoch never crucified Whitlam when he didn't deserve it. Not like this.